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'Put your head down &#8230; keep your mouth shut'

Michael Lynch

Ladies-only lunch: Gai Waterhouse fulfilled a commitment at Warrnambool on Tuesday but wouldn't be drawn on the More Joyous saga. Photo: Pat Scala

Waterhouse watchers had a field day at Warrnambool on Tuesday as the first lady of racing - at the centre of a he-said, she-said storm with prominent owner John Singleton - entertained a capacity crowd of the town's women at what was billed as a ''ladies-only lunch'' at the racetrack.

Every remark she uttered at the lunch was analysed for its significance in the midst of the More Joyous brouhaha.

Referring to her early years as a trainer - when she had to convince her famous father, T.J. Smith, that training horses was really what she wanted to do - she quipped: ''I didn't realise it was going to be so difficult.''

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Was this a cryptic reference to the showdown with Singo in the Randwick mounting yard over the health and well-being of star galloper More Joyous?

The mare's failure in the All Aged Stakes at Randwick on Saturday precipitated the drama that is now the subject of a NSW stewards inquiry involving the trainer, her bookmaker son Tom and the advertising guru who the following day removed More Joyous from Waterhouse's Randwick yard.

The trainer had a long-standing commitment to come to the 'Bool as she had planned to have a runner at the carnival, hurdler The Nemesis. The former New Zealand-trained galloper went amiss and was a scratching weeks ago, but that didn't deter the champion Sydney trainer from heading south.

When asked ''Have you been defamed?'' by a TV journalist, she promptly turned on her heels and walked away, only stopping to talk again when a racing question was directed her way.

Virtually all media were banned from the lunch, held in an open-sided marquee, so the majority of written press and TV camera crews strained to hear her words over a loudspeaker, which was drowned out by the racecourse broadcasters as horses thundered by.